Dylan M. Taylor
f6ef1a7906
* Use chrono for UTC/calendar conversion instead of hand-rolled copies Replaces the hand-rolled civil_from_days / days_from_civil copies (log timestamp, ISO metadata dates, Align Video to Data timestamp parsing, the Numbers effect's date, the Home and Render Queue date columns, and the benchmark report date) with chrono as a workspace dependency. Output formats are unchanged and pinned by the existing tests. AGENTS.md now says time goes through chrono. Follow-up to storytold/cadcraft#1785 * Keep 5-digit years unprefixed; derive Numbers weekday from the same date chrono's %Y writes a '+' before years past 9999, where the old code wrote {y:04}. timestamp, iso_date, format_utc, utc_stamp and xtask's utc now write the year with {:04} again and let chrono format the rest, so a far-future clock keeps the plain zero-padded year. date_from_days took its weekday from the raw input modulo while the year/month/day fell back to the epoch for day counts outside chrono's range, so an unrepresentable count printed a fallback date paired with the input's weekday. The weekday now comes from the same resolved date, so both agree. Tests cover the year-10000 timestamp and the out-of-range Numbers date. * Keep the whole date in format_ago for five-digit years format_ago cut format_utc to 10 bytes, so a year past 9999 lost its last digit (10000-01-0). Take the date up to the space instead. Tested. * Keep Numbers dates exact past chrono's range date_from_days converted the day count by building a Unix timestamp and calling DateTime::from_timestamp, which falls back to the epoch (and so reads 1970-01-01, a Thursday) once the date leaves chrono's NaiveDate range near year ±262143. Numbers' `value` slider is a plain scalar with no range guard, so a keyframed count reaches that: Long Date of 100_000_000 showed "Thursday, January 1, 1970" instead of the real "Monday, September 13, 275790" -- exactly the plausible unrelated-date fallback the review rejects, and the derived weekday matched the stand-in date, not the input. Route it through the 400-year Gregorian cycle like pdfcraft 9d4cb3ca: chrono converts the day within one cycle (num_days_from_ce of the rebased rest, always in range) and the whole cycles are added back as years, in i128 so i64::MIN/MAX can't overflow. chrono stays the only calendar logic. The weekday still comes from the resolved date, so it always agrees with it. Tested: date_from_days_past_chrono_range pins the pre-chrono dates and weekdays at/over chrono's bound on both sides of the 2000-01-01 epoch (and that the extremes don't overflow); numbers_formats adds the same through the public numbers_text entry (Long/Short Date). cargo test -p effectcraft-effects, fmt --check and clippy -D warnings all clean. * time: preserve out-of-range years instead of the epoch `DateTime::from_timestamp(..).unwrap_or_default()` changed the existing output: inputs the old hand-rolled civil-from-days converted (e.g. `10_000_000_000_000` s → 318857-05-20 17:46:40) collapsed to the epoch. Restore the old conversion domain with a cycle-based helper: reduce by whole 400-year Gregorian cycles (146_097 days), convert the in-range remainder with chrono, and carry the year back as i128 (saturating to the output type). Only the year leaves chrono's range; month, day and time of day stay exact. chrono remains the only calendar logic (NaiveDate::from_num_days_from_ce_opt); no new features. Sites (UTC): - crates/engine logging.rs `timestamp` (u64 ms): far-future clock keeps its year. 10e12 s → "318857-05-20T17:46:40.000Z", u64::MAX ms → "584556019-04-03T14:25:51.615Z" (was "1970-01-01..."). - crates/engine media_browser.rs `iso_date` (u64): 10e12 s → "318857-05-20T17:46:40Z", u64::MAX → "584554051223-11-09T07:00:15Z". - crates/ui-egui panels/home.rs `format_utc` (i64): 10e12 → "318857-05-20 17:46", i64::MIN → "-292277022657-01-27 08:29". - crates/ui-egui panels/render_queue.rs `utc_stamp` (u64): 10e12 → "318857-05-20 17:46:40", u64::MAX → "584554051223-11-09 07:00:15". - xtask bench.rs `utc` (u64): 10e12 → "318857-05-20 17:46 UTC", u64::MAX → "584554051223-11-09 07:00 UTC"; added a test. * Name the 400-year range extension as the one exception to the time rule The rule said never to hand-roll calendar math, but the range fix (shifting by whole 400-year Gregorian cycles so dates past chrono's year range keep their old output) is cycle arithmetic, so the rule and the code disagreed. The rule now names that exception: the library still computes month, day and time, and only whole cycles are carried in the year. * Say the library computes month and day; time-of-day is plain arithmetic Narrows the range-extension wording: the date library computes the calendar fields, and splitting seconds into hours, minutes and seconds is ordinary arithmetic, which is what the code does.
EffectCraft
Motion graphics and visual effects; an open-source, professional motion graphics and visual effects studio, built in pure Rust.
A free, open-source compositor: compositions, layers, keyframes, 306 effects, layer styles, expressions, 3D cameras and lights, and a render queue, native on macOS, Windows and Linux, and in the browser. Young, moving fast, and already usable.
EffectCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps
Note
ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life. Digital, generative, music, games — if you make things, you're one of us. Come say hi on Discord.
What it is · Animate · Effects · 3D · Export · Agents · Get started · Status · How it's made · Downloads · The Crafting Apps · License
What EffectCraft is
EffectCraft is for animated titles, motion graphics and compositing work: the kind of thing motion designers and VFX artists need. You build a composition out of layers (solids, shapes, text, footage, other compositions), animate their properties with keyframes, stack effects on them and render the result.
The interface feels natural and responsive, with dedicated panels (Project, Composition, Timeline, Layer, Footage, Effect Controls, Tools, Preview, Effects & Presets, Audio, Info, Paragraph, Character, Align, Progress, Render Queue) and standard motion graphics shortcuts, going further in a few places where it matters to us:
- Lottie import and export built in, so animations can go straight to the web and apps without a plugin.
- A project file you can read. Projects are versioned JSON (
.ecproj), so they diff cleanly in version control. - Everything is scriptable. Every menu item, timeline drag and property edit goes through one command registry, so the same actions are reachable from a command line, a JSON control channel and an MCP server for agents.
- No FFmpeg. Video and audio decoding and encoding are pure Rust: FilmCraft's codecs and EffectCraft's own VP9, AV1, HEVC and Opus encoders.
Animate
The panels, menus and shortcuts follow standard motion design conventions: Project, Composition, Timeline, Effect Controls, Properties, Effects & Presets, Character, Paragraph, Align, Info, Preview, Audio and the Render Queue, docked the way you expect. Drag footage, comps and effects between them: onto the comp viewer, where they land under the pointer, or into the Timeline, between layers and at the time you point to.
- Layers of every kind: solids, shapes, text, footage, nested compositions, nulls, adjustment layers, cameras and lights; parenting, track mattes, all 38 blend modes, motion blur.
- Keyframes that behave the same: linear, Bezier, hold, auto and continuous Bezier, roving keys, Easy Ease (F9), Keyframe Velocity and Interpolation dialogs, copy and paste at the current time, and a Graph Editor with value and speed graphs and draggable handles.
- Time: time remapping, time stretch, time-reverse, freeze frame, work area, markers, exact frame-accurate timing at every frame rate including 29.97 drop-frame.
- Shapes and masks: shape layers with trim paths, repeaters, round corners, offset, zig zag, twist, wiggle, merge paths and gradient strokes; masks drawn with the pen tool, with modes, feather, expansion and vertex editing in the viewer.
- Text: point and paragraph text with real shaping in any font installed on your machine, the Character and Paragraph panels, and text animators with range selectors.
- Expressions: JavaScript with the standard motion expressions model (
wiggle,loopOut,thisComp.layer("…"), vector maths on arrays), an inline editor and the pick-whip. - Timeline like you know it: twirl layers open to Transform, masks, effects and the rest; drag rows to reorder layers; rename with Enter or a double-click; the property shortcuts (A, P, S, R, T, M, F, E, L, U and their double presses AA, PP, SS, RR, TT, MM, FF, EE, LL, UU), Shift to add properties, Alt+Shift+A/P/S/R/T to key the current time, Ctrl+` to twirl selected layers.
- Puppet tools: Position, Advanced, Bend, Starch and Overlap pins on a mesh built from the layer, real-time pin recording, rotate/scale handles, pins driven by (or carrying) nulls for rigging, and follow-through for hair and cloth.
Effects
306 built-in effects across its categories, each with its parameter names, order and defaults: blur and sharpen, channel, color correction (Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, a full color-grading panel…), distort (Warp, Bulge, Turbulent Displace, CC Power Pin…), generate (Fractal Noise, Gradient Ramp, Stroke, Write-on, Audio Spectrum…), keying, matte, noise and grain, perspective, simulation (CC Particle World, CC Rainfall, Shatter, Card Dance, Caustics, Wave World…), stylize (Glow, CC Glass…), time (Echo, Posterize Time, Timewarp, Time Displacement…), audio (Reverb, Parametric EQ, Delay, Stereo Mixer…), text, transitions, utility and expression controls. All nine Layer Styles (Drop Shadow, Inner/Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Satin, overlays, Stroke) with Global Light. Preview plays audio in sync, with meters and waveforms.
3D
Classic 3D compositing: 3D layers with orientation and material options, one- and two-node cameras with depth of field, lights (parallel, spot, point, ambient) with soft ray-traced shadows, layers that intersect correctly, orbit, pan and dolly camera tools, and Front, Top, Left and Custom views.
Export
A dedicated Render Queue, with Render Settings and Output Modules: H.264 MP4 and ProRes MOV (Proxy to 4444 XQ with alpha) with audio, HEVC (Main / Main 10) and AV1 MP4, WebM (VP9 with inter frames and alpha, or AV1; Opus audio), PNG, JPEG, TIFF and 32-bit EXR sequences, animated GIF and WAV/AIFF. Field rendering with 3:2 pulldown, effect/solo/guide/depth overrides, crop, region of interest and resize, Render Settings and Output Module templates with defaults, post-render actions, storage overflow and render logs. The same queue runs from the command line. Every encoder is pure Rust (FilmCraft's H.264, ProRes and AAC; EffectCraft's own VP9, AV1, HEVC and Opus); there is no FFmpeg inside.
Lottie goes both ways: File ▸ Export ▸ Lottie JSON… writes a composition (precomps, shape,
solid, image, text and null layers, eased and spatial keyframes, masks, track mattes, blend
modes, time remapping, optionally expressions) as .json or .lottie, and lists anything Lottie
cannot express; File ▸ Import ▸ Lottie… opens one as a new composition.
Built for agents
Everything you can do from a menu is a command with an id, and agents can reach every one of them:
- MCP server:
effectcraft-cli mcpspeaks the Model Context Protocol over stdio, headless or bridged to the running app (--bridge 9877). Tools cover commands, the project and property tree, keyframes and rendered frames. This repository ships a ready.mcp.json. - Command line: one-shot calls with JSON output, for example
effectcraft-cli set Main '#1' transform/position '[100,360]' --time 0 main.ecproj --saveoreffectcraft-cli render --comp Main --out main.mp4, oreffectcraft-cli exec file.exportLottie '{"comp":"Main","path":"main.json"}' main.ecproj. - Control channel:
effectcraft --control 9877accepts JSON lines to run commands, inspect and click any widget by its automation id, and take screenshots.
See docs/agents.md and docs/control-protocol.md.
Get started
Installers for each version are on the Releases page: a universal macOS app; Windows MSIs and portable zips for x64, x86 and ARM64; Linux AppImage, Flatpak, deb, rpm and tar.gz for x86_64 and aarch64, plus a riscv64 tar.gz; a FreeBSD x86_64 tarball; and the web build. Downloads lists every file. The Windows ARM64 build runs natively on Windows on ARM, without x64 emulation. CI installs that MSI on Windows 11 ARM64 hardware, checks both programs are ARM64 and runs the command-line tool there, but it doesn't open the app's window or run the test suite natively on ARM64 yet, so please report anything that behaves differently.
On Gentoo, the community ::snakebyte overlay packages
the Linux release as media-video/effectcraft-bin (not maintained by the EffectCraft team):
eselect repository add snakebyte git https://github.com/switch87/snakebyte-overlay.git
emaint sync -r snakebyte
echo 'media-video/effectcraft-bin ~amd64' >> /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/effectcraft
emerge --ask media-video/effectcraft-bin
To build it yourself you need Rust 1.95 or newer.
git clone https://github.com/storytold/effectcraft
cd effectcraft
cargo run --release -p effectcraft # the app (add `-- --demo` to open the demo project)
cargo run --release -p effectcraft-cli -- render --out intro.mp4 # render the demo headless
cargo xtask web --serve 8765 # the browser build on http://127.0.0.1:8765/ (docs/web.md)
New to it? docs/footage.md covers importing footage and image sequences and Interpret Footage.
To work on it: cargo test --workspace, and cargo xtask ci before every commit (format, lints,
tests, layering, asset attribution and the WebAssembly build). See CONTRIBUTING.md,
docs/architecture.md and docs/testing.md.
Where it stands
EffectCraft is young: its first commit was on 1 October 2026. A comprehensive feature set exists, including 306 effects, but breadth is not the same as full maturity across every edge case. Today it's a good place to try things and to tell us what breaks. It isn't yet recommended for production client work. In particular:
- Native project format. Projects are saved as
.ecproj, readable versioned JSON. Proprietary project formats and After Effects SDK plug-ins are not supported. - Fidelity is still being refined. Automated rendering tests currently focus on small compositions, so please report visual discrepancies or unexpected behaviour.
- macOS is the most tested platform. Linux and Windows users have hit basic interaction bugs, which we're fixing first.
- The trained models are new. Roto Brush can use MobileSAM (an optional 40 MB download in Settings ▸ Roto Brush) and face tracking can use Google's MediaPipe Face Landmarker (an optional 3.8 MB download in Settings ▸ Face Tracking). Both are actively undergoing evaluation and tuning.
EffectCraft is in alpha: about 91% of the features tracked in docs/target-app-parity.md exist, and we estimate it is about 45% of the way to being ready for full professional production work. The ROADMAP has the plan, docs/target-app-parity.md the measurement and docs/gaps.md every known shortfall. The web build (docs/web.md) runs the full app in the browser. Bug reports are the most useful thing you can send us right now.
How it's made
- Engine first. A stack of small crates with strict layering. The interface (egui) sits on top and nothing underneath depends on it.
- Clean room. We work from public documentation and observable behavior, never from proprietary files, icons, presets or code. No code is copied from GPL projects. The full rules are in AGENTS.md.
- Private by default. No telemetry, and no network access unless you ask for it.
- One family. EffectCraft shares its time model and text engine design with FilmCraft, and gets its video and audio codecs from it.
Downloads
New to EffectCraft? Download it from the EffectCraft page on getartcraft.com. That's the easiest way to install it.
Want a specific build or format? On GitHub, the latest release has every build listed below, and all releases has earlier versions and their notes. <ver> in the file names is the version number, and SHA256SUMS.txt lists a checksum for every file.
Windows
| Build | Installer | Portable |
|---|---|---|
| x64 (64-bit Intel/AMD) | effectcraft-<ver>-windows-x64.msi |
effectcraft-<ver>-windows-x64-portable.zip |
| arm64 (Snapdragon and other ARM PCs) | effectcraft-<ver>-windows-arm64.msi |
effectcraft-<ver>-windows-arm64-portable.zip |
| x86 (32-bit) | effectcraft-<ver>-windows-x86.msi |
effectcraft-<ver>-windows-x86-portable.zip |
Installers and executables are code-signed. The installer asks where to install EffectCraft
(Program Files by default), and later versions install into the same folder. To install silently
into a folder of your choice: msiexec /i effectcraft-<ver>-windows-x64.msi /qn INSTALLFOLDER="D:\Apps\EffectCraft".
macOS
| Build | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| App, universal (Apple silicon + Intel) | effectcraft-<ver>-macos-universal.dmg |
Signed and notarized |
| Command-line tool, universal | effectcraft-cli-<ver>-macos-universal.zip |
Signed and notarized |
Linux
| Format | x86_64 | aarch64 (ARM64) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppImage | effectcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.AppImage |
effectcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.AppImage |
Runs anywhere; updates itself with AppImageUpdate (.zsync files) |
| Flatpak | effectcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.flatpak |
effectcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.flatpak |
Sandboxed; flatpak install --user <file> |
| Debian/Ubuntu | effectcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.deb |
effectcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.deb |
|
| Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE | effectcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.rpm |
effectcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.rpm |
|
| Tarball | effectcraft-<ver>-linux-x86_64.tar.gz |
effectcraft-<ver>-linux-aarch64.tar.gz |
Unpack anywhere |
RISC-V 64-bit: effectcraft-<ver>-linux-riscv64.tar.gz (tarball only; needs glibc 2.39+, e.g. Ubuntu 24.04+ or Debian 13+).
File drag-and-drop on Linux: The current eframe/winit 0.30 native Wayland backend does not
deliver file-hover or file-drop events. On Hyprland and other native Wayland sessions, use
File ▸ Import ▸ File… (which accepts multiple files), or start EffectCraft via XWayland if
XWayland is installed and DISPLAY is set:
env -u WAYLAND_DISPLAY effectcraft
When the backend delivers events (X11/XWayland, Windows and macOS), dropping media anywhere in the window imports it, and a drop-target hint appears while hovering. On native Wayland the app cannot detect an attempt that generates no event; it shows a startup notice with the File ▸ Import fallback instead.
FreeBSD
| Build | File |
|---|---|
| x86_64 | effectcraft-<ver>-freebsd-x86_64.tar.gz |
Web (WebAssembly)
| Build | File | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Static site | effectcraft-web-<ver>.zip |
Runs in a modern browser; host it on any static server |
The Crafting Apps
EffectCraft is one of the Crafting Apps: free, open-source creative tools from the ArtCraft team, each written from scratch in Rust and each able to stand on its own.
| App | What it's for | Code | Learn more | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
PhotoCraft | Image editing: layers, masks, type and real PSD files | GitHub | Website |
 |
VectorCraft | Vector illustration | GitHub | Website |
 |
FilmCraft | Video editing, color and sound | GitHub | Website |
 |
LightCraft | Photo library and raw development | GitHub | Website |
 |
PdfCraft | Reading, organizing and protecting PDFs | GitHub | Website |
 |
EffectCraft | Motion graphics and visual effects · you are here | GitHub | Website |
 |
DesignCraft | Page layout and publishing | GitHub | Website |
And ArtCraft itself, our AI image and video studio for artists who want real control.
Come make things with us
Our Discord is where artists of every kind hang out: people who paint, shoot, draw, cut film, set type, and people still figuring out what they like to make. Share what you're working on, ask for help, tell us what's broken, or tell us what you wish these tools could do. Whatever your medium and however long you've been at it, you're welcome here.
discord.gg/artcraft · getartcraft.com · The Crafting Apps · EffectCraft
License and credits
EffectCraft is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option. Copyright (c) 2026 ArtCraft Team and the EffectCraft contributors. Required notices are in NOTICE.
Bundled fonts, icons, images and other assets keep their own open licenses; each one is listed with its author, source and license in ATTRIBUTION.md.
The ArtCraft name, wordmark and logos in docs/brand/ are trademarks of the
ArtCraft Team and are not covered by this license. They may be used only unmodified, and only as
part of this repository and EffectCraft, under docs/brand/LICENSE-brand.txt.
Forks and modified versions must remove them.
Made by the ArtCraft team and community.